Deborah Castellano's book, Glamour Magic: The Witchcraft Revolution to Get What You Want (Llewellyn, 2017) is available for pre-order: https://www.amazon.com/Glamour-Magic-Witchcraft-Revolution-What/dp/0738750387

She is a frequent contributor to Occult/Pagan sources such as the Llewellyn almanacs, Witchvox, PaganSquare and Witches & Pagans magazine. She writes about Charms, Hexes, Weeknight Dinner Recipes, Glamoury and Unsolicited Opinions on Morals and Magic at Charmed, I'm Sure.

Deborah's book, The Arte of Glamour is available for purchase on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

The longer you are in a relationship with a person(s), the harder it is to spend quality time together. There are a lot of factors to why this is: you are currently getting on each other's damn nerves, you have been in a Netflix/Pokemon coma for several months, lots overtime at work/child-related commitments, you can't seem to manage keeping your house in a state that is not A Pit of Despair, Summertime Sadness and other Adulting afflictions.

Somewhere, in the back of your head, you figure well, there's always next week, we'll try then. Except next week keeps coming and dates keep not happening. On one hand, this is a soothing part of a long term relationship: you are 90% sure Partner(s) are not going anywhere so you have that reassurance that eventually, you can work this out and get the romance rekindled. On the other hand, this is how entropy happens, Charmers. The more time you spend not actively engaging with each other, the more it's a habit, the more it's a habit the less there's romance and the less kindly inclined you will be towards each other. Think about it: if you have a recent super fun memory of Partner(s), are you going to be more inclined or less inclined to not start World War III over something trivial? If you don't have a recent super fun memory of Partner(s), are you going to be more inclined or less inclined to start World War III? Right.

Whenever a witness on my beloved Judge Judy starts hemming and hawing about a question they don't want to answer, she always barks, Um is not an answer! But sometimes? It kind of is.

I always assume that everyone who reads me is a psycho in the same way. You know what you want, you know how to get it, you just need a kick in the ass to get it. But then I look at people I actually know and I realize that not everyone knows what they want in the micro or macro. For example, I thought I'd be writing books about hearth witchery. It turns out though that writing recipe based pieces (such as my Llewellyn annualswork) is incredibly tedious for me. I don't mind it for the annuals, but a whole book? I'd run away to New Orleans with no forwarding address a lot faster than I would be likely to actually finish it. I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was eight, but what I actually write about depends on who's paying, like most artists. I've written smut, I've written about camping (despite loathing it) and camping equipment, I've written about miniature goat farming. I prefer the smut and the witchy over content writing, but I would do content work again if I had to and I would love to write Young Adult. But I spent several years working to pave my way into hearth witchery, to the point that it was the first proposal my editor had from me. She wanted it to be witchier and I said, I can do that but can I pitch a few other things first? We can come back if you don't like any of it. She picked up glamour and here we are. I love hearth based witchcraft, but I'm passionate about glamour.

We all know that time, that heady thrill when you start to become competent at Witchcraft and you know which names to flaunt, who to be friends with if you want to be in with the in crowd, what paths will get you recognition, what is considered brave, daring and bold.

People die, things break. At one point you had your life together but somehow, through a confluence of chemical fiesta related issues (depression, anxiety, whatever is misfiring up in there), your body that keeps insisting on getting sick and/or will not let go of your permanent medically diagnosed conditions, overwork at the office, creative projects and your Muse that never shuts up, heartbreak, children whose self-governing skills are suspect, the thoughts that are peaceful until you lie down and then it's a riot and that one time you had a free night? Did you do anything productive? No, you did not. You sat up drinking margaritas in the ruins of your house with your besties while watching Jennifer's Body for the eighty billionth time, laughing and throwing popcorn at each other.

More and more of your to-do list becomes unchecked until you stop bothering to make one. The dishes tower to the heavens, you eat food out of a box like a garbage animal, you binge on Netflix, you don't go for walks or to the gym or to yoga, you haven't seen anyone (your besties, your spouse, your lover, your family, your kids) much at all due to these modern life crossed conditions leaving you shipwrecked and alone. You haven't been engaging in any activities that please you - going to the farmer's market, making plans to go bowling at midnight, finishing knitting that shawl that you keep picking and putting down, the book you always are too tired to read and your refusal to do anything that doesn't feel safe and familiar has painted you into such a corner that you don't remember what it was like to enjoy your daily life anymore.

I was taught how to be afraid and how to avoid danger with the understanding that it still may not do what I want it to do. Never go to a bar or a club alone, never go home with a guy you just met because you might wind up in his refrigerator. Travel in a pack of girls and you will keep each other as safe as anyone can. You will protect each other from aggressive would-be suitors, bad half-drunk decisions and make sure no one wound up in the hospital.

And we did do those things for each other and we kept each other safe.

One of the best Easters in my memory is the year my exhusband walked out on me. I was shaking and trying to get ready for Easter with my more conservative side of my family, feeling sick to my stomach. I would be the only one of the cousins who could not stick the landing on her marriage. While none of them blamed me, I couldn’t bear the feeling of foreignness or pity that would follow. My sister was traveling for her job and I had no idea how to articulate this feeling to anyone.

My mother came to pick me up and took one look at me and her innate MomSense took over. I couldn’t articulate the weird mix of anxiety, shame and Otherness I was feeling very well. Retrospectively, I think she was able to figure it out though. She immediately claimed a migraine and made our regrets and decided we would go to a local restaurant. Which of course was jammed full of people with reservations. She decided we would sit at the bar and have a glass of wine and eat there. You have to understand, my mom is equal parts rebel and Italian-American Emily Gilmore. I don’t think she had sat to eat at a bar in her life. She had probably sat at a bar, period, >10 times. But we sat at the bar, exiles in our homeland. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember having the same giddy skipping-school feeling and how we laughed together about defying tradition and expectation.

Shirley calls for me to join in/ Next to Fabra’s sweet tenor/ But I don’t see a place for me/ And I’m too quiet to be heard/ But I’m only in time / A sojourn/ With no reasons why—/Just my melody/ So I’ll sing good too/ So I’ll sing good too/ So I’ll sing good too. . .

The intertubes are positively clogged with how to care for trembling, frightened introverts. I say that as someone who is sometimes a scared rabbit herself, as you all know by now. Naturally, this makes everyone who does not self-identify as an introvert ask when does anyone care about how to care for them, the non-introvert identified?